Best Place to Feel Like a Pro 2008 | Center Court at Gates Tennis Center | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Place to Feel Like a Pro

Center Court at Gates Tennis Center

Like a lot of sports, tennis is played better with an audience: You don't let your feet get lazy or stick to safe shots when people are watching. You want them to see you ace your serves and charge the net on returns. But unless you're Roger Federer, your matches aren't likely to draw a crowd. The next best thing is Center Court at Gates Tennis Center, where $5 an hour for singles or $6 for doubles will make you feel like a star even if no one is there. Set below ground and separated from the others by a cement ledge, the court has a decided air of importance. (And the ledge makes for excellent spectator seating in case any fans do show up.) You could say it's an ace in the hole.

Best Place to Flip Out

The Front Porch

The Front Porch has totally flipped! For starters, the bar hosts Flip Cup tournaments on the first Tuesday of each month. For those who've never played — or for those who've played but were too drunk to remember the specifics — Flip Cup involves two teams of up to five players; the first team to slam their beers and flip their cups over by gently tapping the bottom of the cup wins. But really, everyone wins, because everyone gets inebriated! If Flip Cup's not your thing, try Flip Night on Wednesdays: Flip a coin, and if you guess the toss correctly, your drink is free. Or maybe you're not the flipping kind. In that case, you can take advantage of the Front Porch's Hello My Name Is drink specials. It's simple: If your name is on the calendar, you drink free all night long. Rejoice, all ye Toms, Sarahs, Daves, Amandas and Jasons — and woe to those whose hippie parents named them something weird.

Best Place to Get in Touch With Your Inner Dork

Black and Read, Inc.

Alongside the incredible selection of books and records at Black and Read, nestled next to the science-fiction paperbacks like some fantastic dragon hoard spilling over with powerful artifacts and fabulous jewels, is the most impressive collection of role-playing games and accessories most mortals will ever lay eyes on. The place is a virtual museum of RPG history, from the obvious — enough Dungeons & Dragons-related material to choke a troll — to the genuinely obscure, such as Gary Gygax's Cyborg Commando. Rule books, source books and dice of every shape and size await those brave souls who seek adventure, riches and glory in any of the hundreds of fantastic worlds found within. And fret not: Black and Read also stocks an impressive collection of other nerd fodder, such as the classic Settlers of Catan board game and Magic: The Gathering cards.

Best Place to Play Pool

Pair-o-Dice Poolroom

When the Skylark Lounge relocated three years ago from much smaller digs nearby, it had a lot of space to fill. So in August 2006, the club cued up its super-deluxe Pair-o-Dice Poolroom with four pool tables and pinball machines. The upstairs hall, which is open Thursdays through Saturdays from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., fits in perfectly with the rest of the bar's vintage-centric vibe, meaning you'll be shooting stick in style. Tom Ross, a world-class player and columnist for Billiards Digest, gives free clinics on Thursdays and occasionally brings in other pool aces. And if the Pair-o-Dice is good enough for a guy like Ross, who's taught more than 4,500 people the way of the game, you should feel fine on the felt, too.

Best Place to Play With the Big Boys

Dig This Heavy Equipment Play Arena

Take a good look around you, gals: Little boys never truly grow up. Sure, they morph and mutate, but in the end, they all still want to play with big trucks. New Zealander Ed Mumm of Steamboat Springs wasn't any different, but he turned his stunted childhood fantasy into a big idea, opening what is probably the nation's (if not the world's) first heavy-equipment theme park. For a fee, Mumm will put willing grownups into the driver's seat of a bona fide excavator or bulldozer for a half- or full-day romp in the sandbox, complete with orientation, instruction and special activities. Open year-round (in winter, participants can push snow; after it melts, there's a fantabulous dirt pile), Dig This is like primal therapy, only better.

Best Place to Score an Elway Bobblehead

Elway's Downtown

The new Elway's at the Ritz-Carlton is such a great people-watching spot that your neck will hurt after a few drinks at the bar, but that's far from the only head-bobbling going on. The steakhouse also has "a roomful" of real bobbleheads featuring its namesake, retired Bronco legend John Elway, and they're free for the asking to anyone who wants one. They read "Class of 2004" and look nice on a souvenir shelf. Make ours a 7 and 7, and keep 'em coming.

Best Place to Score in Glendale

Infinity Park

It seems like every other whistle-stop on the map needs some claim to fame these days, but we're glad that the hamlet of Glendale chose rugby for its raison d'être when it could just as easily have hyped its strip clubs and sex-toy stores. SuperTarget, move over: State-of-the-art Infinity Park, which boasts an all-grass regulation rugby pitch, is the first municipal rugby stadium in the country, sports a big-ass wide-screen JumboTron, seats 5,000 and will eventually house a Rugby Hall of Fame. And not only does it host the Glendale Raptors' men's and women's teams (as well as youth teams and camps), but it's also a sweet little outdoor venue for summer movies and concerts-to-be. Welcome to the scrum.

Best Place to Spot a Second-String Nugget

Purple Martini-DTC

There's a lot of electricity at Purple Martini's south location, and we're not just talking about the night a Greenwood Village police officer tasered former Nuggets bench-warmer DerMarr Johnson. "Purple," as the cool kids call it (also known as "Second Stringers"), is a top spot to watch backup Nuggets picking up chicks. In fact, these guys probably score more here than they do on the floor of the Pepsi Center.

Best Place to Spot a Starting Nugget

Blue Ice

On hip-hop nights, there's a line out the door at Blue Ice, and people pack the dance floor. But in the back, behind the cloth screens, you can usually find a Nugget or two chilling, sipping expensive champagne and macking on hotties. Big man Marcus Camby frequents the spot, and Kenyon Martin and Carmelo Anthony come around from time to time. The ballers keep their distance from the dance-floor drama, but their presence is always made known through the grapevine.

Best Pro Shop

Positive Strokes for Women

Ann Slocomb sees tennis not merely as recreation, but rather as a healthy form of mind-body gestalt, something like life itself. So she opened Positive Strokes for Women, a tennis shop and wellness center that caters to the fairer sex. Here you can not only work on your serve, visit an in-house nutritionist, let an expert customize your racquet or take part in a fitness workout, but you can also pick and choose from the latest court fashions by LBH, Jerdog, Balle de Match and Wilson, yoga and workout gear by local designers Stonewear Designs and VivaDiva, or a message T-shirt from be.ology. And, for your comfort, it's all ladies-only. Ace.

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